PHYS 347 - Introduction to Biological Physics

Instructor: Eldon Emberly Office: SCB9684 Phone: 23701 e-mail: eemberly_at_sfu_dot_ca

Syllabus


Important Dates:

Oct 11 – Midterm 1 (in class)

Nov 8 - Midterm 2 (in class)

Dec 1 – Last class

Dec 13 – Final exam 12:00-3:00 PM (room TBA)


Rescheduled Lectures:

Fri Sept 30: 2:30-3:20 (room TBA)
Tue Oct 18: 1:30-2:20 (room TBA) – NEW DATE TBA


Lectures:

Lecture 1:  Scaling laws in biology    Scaling figures & table

Lecture 2&3: Summary of Molecular Biology (43 pages)
                      Cellular Census Notes
                      Timescales Notes                  

Lecture 4, 5, 6: Heat & Free Energy Concepts   Energy, Equilibrium and Cells   Glimpse at Mech Energy and Entropy

Lecture 7, 8, 9, (10): Probability Theory and Kinetic Theory   Information & Entropy    The Boltzmann Distribution

Lecture 11, 12: Receptor Binding, Cooperativity & Hill Functions

Lecture 13, 14, 15, 16: RNA folding   Protein Folding    Chromosome Structure & Freely Jointed Chain

Lecture 17, 18, 19: Biologial Beams: Bending energy, Worm-like-chain    Bending energy applications

Lecture 20, 21: Biological Membranes    Membrane Energetics & Applications

Lecture 22, 23, 24: Diffusion in Biology: Random Walks and Fick's Equations

Lecture 25, 26: Water: Life at low Reynold's Number

Lecture 27, 28: Osmotic Pressure, Channels and Charge Screening - preview for neurons     Debye-Huckel Theory

Lecture 29, 30: Ion channels: setting up membrane potentials

Lecture 31, 32: Nerve impulses: Hodgkins-Huxley Theory

Lecture 33: Last lecture - Cells as computers


Assignments:

Assignment #1 (due Sept 27 in class)   DNA data (bdna.pdb)

Assignment #2 (due Oct 6 in class)

Assignment #3 (due Oct 20 in class)

Assignment #4 (due Nov 3 in class)

Assignment #5 (due Nov 17 in class)

Assignment #6 (due Dec 1 in class)

Practice for Final